The Website

The website is finally up and running! It isn't finished yet, but by the end of this week-end, I hope to have all of the inventory entered and all of the PayPal buttons in place. As well as a shopping cart.
I have put it at the top of my list of favorite websites here, ha, ha!
I confess to being very, very concerned that learning how to do this in time was going to be beyond my abilities. I owe allot to many people who gave me good advice along the way.

And I think I would really enjoy continuing my education in web design!! It's fun!!
This one was designed on-line via OfficeLive. Another one, which will replace it, is being designed in Dreamweaver. That is the program I am really trying to learn.

I also need to thank my friend Robert Cruz for all of his stunning photographs. Plus my sister Phoebe and her husband Dave, for their photos. What would a plant nursery website be without photos!!?? All of the old photos of mine there, will be replaced in the future with better one. For now though, I felt something was better than nothing.

So I hope that you all will take a moment to visit the site. And once it is finished, I am also hoping you all will e-mail a link to it, to all of your friends and family. And ask them to send it on. The more it gets spread around, the more likely it is to be seen by future customers out there.
Meanwhile, please bear in mind that it is not finished ;-) when you write me with your suggestions.

Have a great day! CatSmiling

Still Working On Website...

It has been a very busy two weeks since I last wrote here. Of course, last Sunday was Mothers Day. These holidays ya know!?
Meanwhile, as I learn how to build websites, I also bought 10 more varieties of upright fuchsia's, bringing my total to 60. One of these days it is going to be at least 100!!
Here below, is a photo from way back when I was first really trying to add to my collection. These are all the little future stock plants getting ready to be tucked in for the winter in 2007. Their big bro's ( the original collection) are in the ground in the back yard at this time.

And here is a photo from today! As you can see, they have grown a bit! And this is after they have been cut repeatedly for propigation! You can't see them all because now it would be impossible to get them all into one photo. So as soon as a fair number of the collection are all in bloom at the same time, I promise to shoot a little video tour.
We had a bit of a heat wave here. Plus, the sun is now rising and setting so much farther north, that the area where I used to keep the new cuttings in the shade, was no longer in the shade! Yicks! Not only were they getting a bit of rising sun, by about 2pm. they were in full sun again. Even with the misting system, the new cuttings just cannot endure that!
So yesterday and today was a frantic race to build another area to keep them in, and move the misting system. Everyone made the transition okay! Some wilted in the heat while they waited on me, but they perked back up again after a while in the cool shade and on the cool mud floor of their new digs ;-)

This is just a photo of what I think is kinda cool. I haven't propigated this fuchsia yet. Because I can't bring myself to cut it down out of the cherry trees it has grown up into! I still don't take the best photos. I wish you could see how it looks like a dream of ruby red gum drops covered with icing, dripping down all over under the cherries.
Now, I've got to get back to work on that website! It ain't easy ;-)
But it is fun!

Working on that website!

Where was I last weekend? Well, a friend came by and took so many stunning photos of the stock plants in bloom, that I spent hours and hours looking at all of them over and over again!
Not all of the varieties were in bloom, as I have been busy making cuttings from them ;-)
But he has given me allot to work with for the website!
Here are two samples of what is to come. This fellow below is one of my all time favorites, Vinegar Jo. I have always loved the small and simple flowers the best.
The is a shot of my ground cover, Isotoma or Star Creeper. I just love these cute and tiny little blue flowers carpeting the ground. I hope to have it covering all of the ground around the base of all of the stock plants. I hope he doesn't mind me posting two of his photos before he's had a chance to edit them. I was just so happy he took this shot. And that little touch of sunlight makes it an award winner in my book!

So keep your eyes peeled, ha, ha, the website for Pedricks Corner is on it's way!

Now, I have cuttings to get planted..................

They Are Doing Fine Diane, Look!

I didn't post last week because it was Easter :-)
Before I get to Diane's tray of fuchsia's, I'd like to introduce you to Larry below. Larry was just a cutting less than a year ago. I was venturing way out into the mountains to find my Jerusalem Artichokes, which I bought from a man named Larry. He had a huge old fuchsia bush in his yard. A perfect example of what I consider to be the goal of Pedricks Corner. Re-introducing the big old fashioned, simple flowered, upright fuchsia to gardeners as part of their landscapes instead of those hanging baskets.
He let me take a few cuttings of it and here it is a few days ago! That is a 15 gallon pot there!
Much better photos taken by some friends today will follow, sorry guys, I couldn't wait and went ahead here with one of my own. But I am going to need yours for the website! And I think my business cards too.


Here you are Diane. These are all of your little babies just three weeks later and doing fine!

I can't believe how much better cuttings do in these new trays! I am just stunned! I am not sure if it is all do to the trays and the deeper cones. Or the longer days and warmer weather. All I know is that I am thrilled!

But where is everyone else!?

Here they are! This is the first 2,000 cuttings. Now the oldest are 8 weeks old and are already leaving for new homes. Black Prince is even blooming! We are having a bit of a heat wave here. So I am going to keep them covered for now, even though they are in full shade on the north side of that wall.

Happy Gardening!

Orchid Love and Graduation Day

Well, it is way late on Sunday night, so this is a quick one!
Diane's tray of fuchsia's is now one week old and doing well as you can see below. My digital photography skills weren't my best today, I was rushing around trying to do too much again.
But toon in next week for their third week and I will have a much better photo for you.
It was graduation day for the first cuttings which are now 7 weeks old. They have a new home and no longer require the automatic misting system to keep them moist. They are well rooted, but still need protection from the sun. Actually, the wind is a constant concern. It pulls the water out of the leaves faster than their new root systems can cope with. So for now, they will stay under their new tent.
And yes, I will be looking forward to a nice strawberry crop! These are new shoots from another wall of them you can't see :-)

Have you ever wondered what all the fuss was about when it comes to orchids? Yes, the flowers are beautiful, but for just about any particular orchid, it could be argued that there are other flowers just as colorful, unusual, etc.

What I find the most stricking about orchids is how incredibly long their flowers last!!

This photo was taken today of my Elfin King. If you remember from my previous posts, this orchid has been in bloom since January!!!

Catching Some Rays and The New Guys

Here they are! These are the new guys! Why are they so much better? Well for one thing, I can stack them with room to spare between them. So cuttings could be stacked and keep each other in the shade. But the best thing about them can be seen in the next photo.

Here they are full of potting soil. And if you look closely at the farthest end of these trays, you will see two cones lying on top. I pulled those two out so you can see that every one of the 200 cones that go into each tray, can be easily pulled out.
That is why they are so much better! Now I can condense trays as rooted cuttings sell, instead of having to wait for an entire tray to empty before I can use it again :)
As you can see, the kids are all doing fine and some even got a chance to catch some rays this weekend! The ones still covered are the youngest and must be kept covered for a few more weeks.

This tray has Diane's fuchsia cuttings in it. She is going to be getting 26 varieties of fuchsia's and they are all in this tray of 200 new cuttings. Since she ordered such a variety, I figured I ought to fill the tray with at least 5 each of everyone she asked for, and 10 of most of them.

She will be keeping an eye on their progress via this blog! When they are all rooted and growing, they will be shipped out to her garden :)

Okay, give them a few hours or maybe even an entire day to perk up, okay? They just got cut and planted in this photo! Wait till you see them next week.

A Bedtime Story

Here are all the little babies. The oldest are now four weeks old! Those are the ones in the far distance. Now comes the tricky part, the transition from keeping them covered, to living in the open. And since only the oldest can do that yet, I will be very concerned about them!
Even my blueberry cuttings are doing fine :)


This is the bedtime story below, ha, ha! This is all the little cuttings wrapped up in their special blankets to keep them moist and happy. It was SO windy this weekend, I was very glad I was home to keep the blanket moist. The wind dried it out much faster than usual. I've got to get an automatic timed watering system to spray them down while I am gone!

So where are the new trays I was talking about? It was necessary to do some repairs this week and the purchase of the new trays had to be put off for a week. The cool thing about them is that the cones can be moved in the trays. The trays will each hold 200 cones, just like a tray holding shaved ice-cones.
What makes them so much better, is that as they sell, I can condense the trays to make room for more. Saving allot of space in a little nursery like mine.
Below is a tree I grew from the pit of a Satsuma Plum! Satsuma's are a large gold plum that are so sweet and wonderful, not at all tart like other plums. Of course, this tree does not produce true Satsuma plums, instead they are only about 1.5 inches across. But they are like golden drops of nectar when they are ripe. And the tree is just beautiful when it is covered with them.
Of course I also love it when it is in bloom. It's too bad I didn't have the camera on video instead of stills, because just after I took this photo, the wind blew a cloud of petals at me! Like a special kind of snow!
Happy Spring!